Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age seems like it's doing everything right on paper. The game is a return to the Japanese Role-Playing standards that made it so popular, which basically means that it revolves around telling a character-focused story while having players fight through countless battles using turn-based combat mechanics. The world in Dragon Quest XI is beautiful and, most of all, just as charming as the cast of characters that you are going to meet throughout this 50-hour adventure. The mechanics work just as well as you would think, meaning that navigating the many different menus (combat, crafting, dialogue) is a cinch.
The game lacks weight, however. First of all, the game lacks difficulty, which results in the already repetitive and unengaging turn-based combat feeling even more like a chore. Throughout my playthrough, I simply adjusted my characters' AI behavior (done through a 'Tactics' menu) so that I could go completely hands-off as I walked through the game. I am serious, I auto-battled my way through most of the game because my characters were doing just fine without my interference, to the point where I actually took bathroom breaks during boss fights. I never had to use any of the more advanced spells, and my characters' AI mostly just selected the strongest attacks with a side of healing spells, which was almost always enough to win the battle.
The story was also not particularly 'challenging'. What that means is that I could only listen to half of the dialogue and still feel like I was ahead of the game. That is not to say that I wanted to most of the time, because the story was still enjoyable due to its great cast of characters. Learning about your companions and interacting with them is definitely the highlight of Dragon Quest XI, but the rest of the story is not unlike reading through one of those short and colorful books for children that feature lots of pretty pictures - not necessarily a bad thing, but those books are not usually 50 hours long. Exploring the world which consists of many different locations that felt alive and just as charming as the rest of the game definitely alleviated some of that problem, but it still felt like there just was not enough meat to this adventure. The side quests did not help, as they were all completely forgettable and clearly just existed to pad out the game even more. The collectibles that were hidden in each location were fun to seek out until I realized that I had no need for the rewards I would receive from meticulously breaking every single pot in the game to find them; the game was just too easy to complete using the standard items found in shops throughout the game.
Overall though, I am happy that I have played through Dragon Quest XI. It made me feel happy because of the charming characters and the positive attitude that the game exuded most of the time. However, the lack of difficulty made the actual gameplay unengaging (literally, since I was able to put down the controller using auto-walk and auto-battle features), which ultimately made the game somewhat boring to play. Still, it was an adventure that I will not forget any time soon - just not one I would want to go on again any time soon either.